See here for my daily tweets: 21 reasons to vote for me for Faculty Chair.

The University Gazette published an article about my candidacy for
Faculty Chair, but there wasn't enough space for more detailed answers
to their questions. Below are fuller answers. I'd be happy to answer
any questions or thoughts by email
to andrew_perrin@unc.edu
and I may update this page based on questions I get.

Andrew
Perrin is Associate Chair of Sociology and Director of Carolina
Seminars. His research and teaching focuses on the sociology of
democracy and relationships between culture and health. He is author,
co-author, or editor of five books, including his recently-published
American Democracy: From Tocqueville to Town Halls to Twitter.
He won a Rachel Rosenfeld award for mentoring in 2004 and a Hettleman
Award in 2009.

Perrin
has served on numerous faculty committees, including the Educational
Policy Committee (EPC, which he chaired for two years), Faculty
Council, and Agenda Committee. He led the effort to establish
Carolina's contextual grade reporting, which was featured in the New
York Times. He has been a Faculty Fellow and a Leadership Fellow
at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities and served on its board.
He co-convened an ad hoc Working Group on the Public Flagship
University. He serves on the Faculty Athletics Committee (FAC),
Committee on Student Conduct (COSC), and Student-Athlete Initiative
Task Force.

Perrin
received his BA from Swarthmore College and MA and PhD from the
University of California, Berkeley. He is Chair-Elect of the American
Sociological Association's (ASA) Theory Section and has held several
other ASA roles. He writes for Scatterplot, a widely-read sociology
blog
(http://scatter.wordpress.com).

What is your view of the role of faculty chair?

First
and foremost, the faculty chair should be an independent voice for
the faculty. That means representing the research, educational,
service, and work-life balance interests of the faculty to the
administration, alongside promoting these missions and principles
outside the university to the public. Because the faculty is the
heart and soul of the university, the faculty chair has the honorable
duty of putting forth a thorough and enthusiastic defense of all the
university's academic missions by representing faculty members'
specific concerns and needs.

If
elected, what are your priorities or goals?

Most
importantly, I intend to be an effective advocate for faculty and
represent faculty's concerns to the administration and the public. I
have considerable experience in University service and know that I
would be able to represent faculty's needs vigorously.

Specifically,
I would like to concentrate on two sets of priorities as faculty
chair.

First,
within the university, I plan to lead continuing efforts to improve
and safeguard academic quality and standards. These efforts include
the new contextual grade reporting system, the major reforms of the
honor system, the increased transparency and changes following the
athletic scandals, and communicating these successes to the public. I
believe strongly that we need to redouble our efforts for racial and
gender equity for faculty as well as students and staff. These and
other measures emphasize our commitment to carrying out all our
academic tasks at the highest level and with honesty and integrity,
and demanding similar high standards of our students.

Second,
as the public spokesperson for the faculty, I plan to work with other
leadership promote the continued importance of the public flagship
university. That means entering into conversations with the public,
government officials, alumni, donors, and critics of the university
to demonstrate the value of all our academic activities. In
particular, it's crucial that we emphasize innovation, discovery, and
scholarship in the social sciences, arts, humanities, education,
government, law, and basic sciences alongside our well-known
successes in the health sciences, economic development, undergraduate
education, and technical innovation. I believe the public of North
Carolina continues to deserve a world-class university, and it is
incumbent upon us to explain why.

What
are two or three of the most pressing issues facing Carolina’s
faculty now?

We
face several major challenges. The ongoing budget cuts, exacerbated
by an increasingly skeptical state government, make it harder for us
to do our jobs. Our extraordinary faculty is a prime target for
hiring by other institutions, particularly given the lack of
meaningful salary increases for many years and the poor benefits
package. We need to increase efforts to reward and retain faculty,
particularly before they are tempted by an outside offer.

The
ongoing scandals surrounding athletics and the concern showed by
elected leaders toward intellectual work have taken a toll on our
reputation externally and on faculty enthusiasm and morale
internally.

More
broadly, we face a political and economic environment that hurts not
just UNC, but also the values of intellectual exploration and
discovery we represent. I believe it is necessary for us to face that
challenge head-on, as the solutions to the other issues will flow
from a thorough defense of these ideals.

How
have these issues changed during your tenure at Carolina?

Absolutely,
I have seen a lot of change in my time here. I arrived at Carolina in
2000, amid relative optimism. Faculty hiring was in good shape, the
budget seemed comfortable, and the voters had just approved a
landmark bond issue that resulted in the construction boom on campus.
UNC—both Chapel Hill and the system—enjoyed strong support in the
state legislature and the Governor's office.

In
the years since, the state budget has been increasingly tight, and
the recent changes in state government have eroded that support.
Carolina's response has been largely positive, from the Carolina
Counts initiative that found ways to use our resources more
effectively, to a host of efforts to improve the quality and impact
of our academic activities.

How
will your professional experiences shape how you plan to lead the
faculty?

Most
of my research and teaching focuses on the sociology of democracy:
the ways people try to make their voices heard and how people learn
to be good citizens. In addition, I have led and been involved with
research teams including colleagues from the Schools of Medicine,
Public Health, Journalism and Mass Communication, and Information and
Library Science, along with departments across the College of Arts
and Sciences. I am both a Faculty Fellow and an Academic Leadership
Fellow at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, where I've
learned important skills I will use as faculty chair. It's been
absolutely wonderful to work with so many amazing faculty across this
incredible University, and these experiences have given me a thirst
to meet even more.

Since
early on in my time at UNC, I have been actively involved in faculty
governance. We are very fortunate to have a robust system of shared
governance that offers faculty a voice. In my first year here, I
served on a committee as part of the General College Curriculum
Review process, and the following year I was elected to Faculty
Council and served on the Agenda Committee as well.

I
was elected to the Educational Policy Committee (EPC) in 2006. During
my two terms on EPC (including two years as chair), I focused on
improving academic quality in teaching. Along with a great group of
colleagues, I led a series of studies and conversations about grading
at UNC that led, eventually, to our being a national leader through
the contextual grade reporting policy that will be implemented this
fall.

While
chairing EPC, I led a 2009 faculty survey on experiences with the
Honor System. Findings from that survey formed the basis for several
years of reform initiatives. These resulted in the landmark changes
to the honor system this year, which provide for greater
accountability for students and greater faculty input on matters of
academic integrity.

Outside
UNC, I have held several elected and appointed positions in the
American Sociological Association, including my current position as
Chair-Elect of ASA's Theory Section. I write frequently for
Scatterplot, a widely-read sociology blog
(http://scatter.wordpress.com)
because I believe strongly in the role of the public intellectual.

All
these experiences give me a unique appreciation for the breadth and
diversity of academic life and the urgency of public participation.
In each of these roles, I have worked to have frank conversations, to
listen carefully to the ideas and concerns of everyone involved, and
to synthesize these ideas into substantive, meaningful reforms. I
plan to lead in a way that recognizes and honors that diversity and
the remarkable ways it combines into the whole university.

How
will you approach representing the concerns and interests of faculty
whose work lives differ significantly from those of faculty in your
school?

Through
my university service and my interdisciplinary research work, I have
a great appreciation for the diversity of academic work on our
campus. I also have the unique position of being married to a faculty
member in the School of Medicine. Learning the issues she faces has
helped me to understand a different side of campus from my own. The
needs and concerns of faculty in different fields and different
schools are different in many ways, including the valued and
incentivized forms of scholarship and teaching, the importance and
availability of research funding, and the interactions among faculty,
undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and more.
I think it is this very diversity that makes the university so
vibrant, so I hope to honor and promote the highest quality and
import within each field, discipline, and school, and find ways to
synthesize these across them.

Do
you believe the University is headed in the right direction with its
dual commitment to excellence in academics and competition at the
highest intercollegiate athletic level?

After
a very difficult several years, I think the University is headed in
the right direction. In the fall of 2011, I was one of several
concerned faculty members who gathered to discuss the athletics
scandals. I was elected to the Faculty Athletics Committee in 2012,
and I am also a member of the Provost's Student-Athlete Initiative
Task Force, which is undertaking a comprehensive review of all the
processes related to student-athletes at UNC. In all of these fora, I
have sought to be an independent voice that looks at the issue from
the point of view of a faculty patriot. I have learned through these
committees that college athletics is far more complicated than I had
imagined, and that there are no simple answers or easy decisions.
Because UNC will struggle and hopefully overcome these issues in the
coming years, I believe my history and involvement to date will be
essential. We are being more systematic and more transparent than
ever before. The reforms that have already been put in place, and
that will be phasing in, should return Carolina to being a national
leader in conducting college athletics appropriately—especially if
we can communicate what good work we have done better.

We
will have to keep talking about athletics and monitoring our
progress, but we also need to recognize that there are over 18,000
non-athlete undergraduate students, not to mention the thousands of
graduate and professional students, postdoctoral scholars, and
faculty who are doing extraordinary research, education, and service.
The issues surrounding athletics are interfering with the support
these other activities need, and we need to return more of our
attention to these core missions of the university.

How
do you think the faculty can best respond to ongoing declines in
state financial support for the university, and to state leaders’
changing levels of investment in the university’s mission?

As
I said above, I think these are the key challenges we face as a
university. We also have some great resources to address these
challenges, including a phenomenal faculty and an enthusiastic,
engaged alumni community. We will have to be very active in searching
for new sources of funding for all our missions while never
abandoning our commitment to being a truly public university.

We
will also have to work diligently to bring the university to the
public, to demonstrate the value of our world-class, complete
university to the public we serve. That means renewing our commitment
to the highest quality in all the academic work we do, alongside
making the case to the public that that work is important and worth
their ongoing support. And it means engaging with our critics to
listen to their concerns and to explain and demonstrate the value of
the university and the importance of intellectual life.